book reviews

Education reform wants competition and global participation, but reform does not seem interested in intervening in the dark side of such progress. As a modern nation, we celebrate development, yet we tend to overlook the lives lost and voices pushed to the margins of society in the process. Literature is one way we can bear witness to distant suffering and contemplate future action.

Teachers have been reading books about the Holocaust with students for years in part because many states made Holocaust education mandatory in the hopes of raising a generation who might live the promise of “never again.” However, again and again we hear stories of genocide and see images of distant suffering.

Teen readers want to uncover the stories behind the images, stories missing from textbooks and the classroom current events magazines. They want the opportunity to ask why “again and again” and to imagine what needs to…